People v. StonePeople v. Stone
Decided and Entered: January 16, 2020
The People of the State of New York, Respondent, v Robert A. Stone, Appellant.
Before: Lynch, J.P., Clark, Mulvey, Devine and Reynolds Fitzgerald, JJ.
Rural Law Center of New York, Castleton (Kelly L. Egan of counsel), for appellant.
Patrick A. Perfetti, District Attorney, Cortland (Elizabeth McGrath of counsel), for respondent.
Devine, J.
Appeals (1) from a judgment of the County Court of Cortland County (Campbell, J.), rendered January 14, 2016, upon a verdict convicting defendant of the crimes of unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine in the third degree, conspiracy in the fifth degree and criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree, and (2) by permission, from an order of said court, entered July 1, 2016, which denied defendant‘s motion pursuant to
On the morning of August 12, 2014, law enforcement officials executed an arrest warrant against defendant and found him
Defendant first argues that the verdict was not supported by legally sufficient evidence and was against the weight of the evidence. Inasmuch as defendant failed to renew his motion for a trial order of dismissal after the presentation of his case, his legal sufficiency argument is unpreserved for our review (see People v Hines, 97 NY2d 56, 61 [2001]; People v Saunders, 176 AD3d 1384, 1385 [2019]). We will nevertheless consider “whether the elements of the charged crimes were proven at trial beyond a reasonable doubt” (People v Saunders, 176 AD3d at 1385) in “weigh[ing] the relative probative force of conflicting testimony and the relative strength of conflicting inferences that may be drawn from the testimony” to assess whether the verdict was against the weight of the evidence (People v Bleakley, 69 NY2d 490, 495 [1987]; see People v Danielson, 9 NY3d 342, 348 [2007]; People v Romero, 7 NY3d 633, 643-644 [2006]). We therefore turn to that review.
Defendant expends the most effort in challenging his conviction for unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine in the third degree, which requires proof that he “possesse[d] at the same time and location, with intent to use, or knowing that another intends to use[,] each such product to unlawfully manufacture, prepare or produce methamphetamine: . . . [t]wo or more items of laboratory equipment and two or more precursors, chemical reagents or solvents in any combination” (
The officers who executed the arrest warrant at the trailer found defendant and Quaile in the trailer and permitted defendant to get dressed before taking him into custody. One of the officers, Lieutenant Troy Boice of the Cortland County Sheriff‘s Department, smelled a chemical odor that he associated with methamphetamine production. Following defendant‘s removal, Quaile consented to a search of the trailer that resulted in the recovery of a plastic bottle stuffed with a tissue in the trailer‘s bedroom and a burnt piece of aluminum foil in a kitchenette cabinet. There was also a bucket found under the dinette table in the kitchenette, within which were items such as a measuring cup and funnel, rubber tubing, a container of Coleman fuel, a bag of drain cleaner, glue sticks and a small container with a salt-like substance. Boice testified that these items were used in the “one-pot shake-and-bake method” of producing methamphetamine, with the drain cleaner used as a reagent, the Coleman fuel used as a solvent, the aluminum foil used as a catalyst and the rubber tubing, glue sticks and plastic bottle serving as lab equipment. None of these items were under defendant‘s exclusive control in a small trailer that he shared with Quaile, but that would not preclude a finding of constructive possession inasmuch as possession may be joint and all of the items “were readily accessible and available to defendant” (People v Palin, 158 AD3d 936, 940 [2018], lv denied 31 NY3d 1016 [2018]; see People v Gaston, 147 AD3d 1219, 1220 [2017]). Moreover, although no methamphetamine or precursor chemicals were found in the trailer, that absence was itself telling since business records admitted at trial showed that defendant and Quaile had each purchased allergy medication containing pseudoephedrine, a precursor, a few days before the search.1 Defendant‘s criminal intent could be inferred from those purchases and the fact that officers found a
Defendant pointed out, among other things, the absence of positive drug test results on the items found and the conflicting testimony regarding the precise role some of the items played in producing methamphetamine. A different verdict would have been reasonable due to those issues but, after according deference to the jury‘s assessment of credibility, we cannot say that the conviction for unlawful manufacture of methamphetamine in the third degree was against the weight of the evidence (see People v Alberts, 168 AD3d at 1301). In view of that conviction, as well as the facts that defendant and Quaile shared the trailer where the scale and other items were recovered and made nearly simultaneous purchases of allergy medication containing pseudoephedrine, the convictions for conspiracy in the fifth degree and criminally using drug paraphernalia in the second degree were also not against the weight of the evidence (see
We do agree with defendant that his right to confront the witnesses against him was violated by the admission into evidence of a statement by Quaile. The statement of a codefendant may ordinarily be introduced at a joint trial if the jury is instructed to consider the statement against the codefendant alone (see People v Stone, 29 NY3d 166, 172 [2017]; People v Cedeno, 27 NY3d 110, 116-117 [2016], cert denied 137 S Ct 205 [2016]; People v Pagan, 87 AD3d 1181, 1183-1184 [2011], lv denied 18 NY3d 885 [2012]). Where the codefendant‘s statement facially incriminates a defendant, however, its use will violate the right of confrontation afforded by the
Here, although Quaile‘s statement was redacted, the jury
Finally, defendant‘s constitutional challenges to
Lynch, J.P., Clark, Mulvey and Reynolds Fitzgerald, JJ., concur.
ORDERED that the judgment is reversed, on the law, and matter remitted to the County Court of Cortland County for further proceedings not inconsistent with this Court‘s decision.
ORDERED that the appeal from the order is dismissed, as academic.